Madam Speaker, before beginning my speech, I would like to join the Deputy Prime Minister, who spoke earlier, in wishing the leader of the opposition and his family a lot of courage on his way to recovery.
Today on behalf of my Cabinet colleagues, I am putting forward the next key part of the government's jobs and growth agenda. This plan introduces over 30 concrete measures involving ten Ministers and their departments "to help create a climate where business can create more jobs for Canadians", if I may quote the Prime Minister.
But before I turn to what we will do next, let us revisit where we were just over a year ago when this government took office.
We were faced with an unemployment rate when we took office of 11 per cent. Business confidence was volatile and consumer confidence was very low. After two years of a half-hearted jobless recovery, fewer Canadians were working and the economy was producing fewer goods and services than at the beginning of the decade.
As a government our first order of business was to work with other levels of government and the private sector to get the recovery moving. Our first weeks in office were characterized by decisive action, including the launching of the national infrastructure program. The reward for leadership and action has been a continuing rise in confidence and improvement in the overall economic conditions of the country.
Most important of all, more Canadians have jobs. Since taking office 414,000 jobs have been created by Canadians for Canadians. Only a year ago people were talking about unemployment rates in excess of 10 per cent to the year 2000. As of last Friday we broke the 10 per cent barrier and Canada's unemployment rate stands at 9.6 per cent. But the government believes it has to do better than just recover from the last recession.
The cycles of recession and recovery over the last three decades have shown some disturbing trends. Decade over decade average unemployment rates have risen, productivity growth has fallen and with it real incomes of Canadians have stagnated.
The time has come to reverse these trends. The time has come to get average unemployment rates down permanently. The time has come to increase productivity, thereby increasing real incomes. But you cannot do this simply by wishing or declaring it to be so. What is required is decisive action by government, wise investment by business and labour, and a new model of co-operation and partnership.
The government is taking decisive action. That is why we have launched a root and branch review of our social programs. That is why the Minister of Finance has set out a new framework for economic policy. That is why we are reviewing every program in every department and agency of the federal government. That is why the government is committed to reducing the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP, come hell or high water. That is why I am introducing Building a More Innovative Economy.
At the outset let me say that this plan will disappoint some. It will disappoint those who believe that government can and should do everything. That approach defined the success of economic programs by bigger budgets, not better government. That is an approach I reject.
This plan will also disappoint those who believe that the best thing government can do is nothing. That is not our view. We believe that economic leadership by government can contribute to economic success.
The fundamental premise behind Building a More Innovative Economy is that it is the private sector, not government, that creates jobs. What government can do is to improve the climate for the private sector to create those jobs.
Where can good government make a difference? The first priority is building a healthier marketplace. Business needs better access to the financing required to help it grow. It needs a labour-management environment that is more co-operative, less adversarial. It needs fewer and more focused government programs. It needs regulations that makes sense. It needs fewer demands from government to fill out forms and shuffle paper.
Tomorrow the President of the Treasury Board will announce the details of our plans for regulatory reform and paper burden reduction. We will use the power of government purchasing as a strategic tool for small and aboriginal business development and growth. My colleague, the Minister of Public Works and Gov-
ernment Services, will soon announce the details of this initiative.
Our second strategic priority is trade. The challenges here are crucial for all Canadians. For jobs, incomes and prosperity we depend more on trade than almost any other country does. Yet we are not the nation of traders that we could be.
That is why my first priority as Minister of Industry was to achieve Canada's first internal trade agreement-the beginning of a process that will bring down interprovincial trade barriers.
And that is why in the early days of its mandate, the government moved quickly and decisively to improve Canada's international trading arrangements both in North America and elsewhere in the world.
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That is also why the Prime Minister has made international trade a personal priority. The recent Team Canada trip to China was an unprecedented success, showing how Canada can succeed in global markets when we work together. We will build on this momentum.
This plan introduces a variety of steps we will take to improve Canada's trading performance. For example, my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, will introduce measures to help develop globally minded businesses. Our challenge as a government is to equip more and more Canadian firms to win in the fiercely competitive international marketplace.
We will focus on support to small businesses that are entering export markets for the first time and target resources for exporter preparation.
We will improve export financing measures.
Taken together, these measures will quickly enable more Canadian firms to meet the challenge of international trade.
Also, a large component of our balance of trade accounts is in tourism. Tourism is big business in Canada and, for the last ten years, we have done a pathetic job promoting ourselves to the rest of the world. That is why last year, Canada suffered a travel account deficit of almost $8 billion.
That is why the Prime Minister announced we will be establishing a Canadian tourism commission to work with other governments and the tourism industry to be more aggressive in marketing Canada as a safe, beautiful and sophisticated destination, meeting the needs of almost every traveller.
Our third strategic priority is infrastructure, both physical and intellectual. This is an area of comparative advantage over which we have control. In this area the government is working on several fronts. The Minister of Transport is producing a new direction for transportation in Canada to meet the needs of the 21st century. The Canada infrastructure works program is well under way and will create a further 65,000 direct jobs.
Today I am announcing that the government will proceed with phase II of CANARIE, the Canadian network for the advancement of research, industry and education. This commitment will accelerate progress on the Canadian information highway.
In addition, I am announcing a continuation of the SchoolNet program which will see all of Canada's 16,500 schools and 3,400 libraries connected to the information highway by 1998, a full two years before the target set by vice-president Gore for the United States.
Our fourth strategic priority for building an innovative economy is science and technology.
In the world today, virtually all product innovation is science-based, the result of research and development. And nothing is more important than product innovation for businesses to maintain and improve market share, thus contributing to economic growth and productivity.
Therefore, nothing is more important for jobs. I believe that no one will dispute the importance of the federal government's role in science, technology, research and development. The need to be more strategic and to ensure that our investment in this area supports Canada's social, economic and environmental goals led to the launching of a comprehensive science and technology review last June.
This review is nearing completion and will set the stage for a clear articulation of a renewed science and technology strategy for Canada.
Building a more innovative economy lays out specific initiatives to do just that: build a more innovative economy. My plan is a series of over 30 initiatives involving ten ministers and their departments-a truly government-wide effort in responding to the challenges of economic leadership.
It is not a panacea. Panaceas do not exist. It is a co-ordinated plan of action, responsive to the real needs of the private sector, a result of consultation, a commitment to a work plan and the accountability that comes with it.
The challenge before us is clear, to push the limits of this recovery and to achieve real and sustained jobs and growth. We will not decree an innovative economy. That simply means we must work together to build one piece by piece. I believe we can do that by acting together, by focusing on real results and by targeting our programs and reducing our spending to meet our deficit commitment.
We said in the red book: "Dynamic economies constantly re-invent themselves and grow through innovation. Innovation and experimentation inevitably entail risk and the possibility of failure. It is the job of government not to protect entrepreneurs against all failure but rather to create the best economic conditions and institutions to allow entrepreneurs to get on with the job".
Building a more innovative economy is a plan of action to implement this vision.